South Africa's internet access provider Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has launched its operations in Zimbabwe as it looks to expand its business beyond South Africa and extend its existing 10 000km fibre network.

According to Vino Govender, Acting Chief Strategy Officer at DFA the Zimbabwe business was established last month in response to growing demand for fibre connectivity.

“You’ve got to look at any market from a business opportunity perspective before going in, and that is what we do. We’ve got a set way through which we evaluate opportunities based on the current regulatory environment and market potential, and the risk outlook. Many of the countries also require us to get a local partner and we always try to find one that is capable before going into a country. While we have now entered Zimbabwe, there are other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that we are currently evaluating before moving even further.”

Govender said that while the change to Zimbabwe’s political leadership did influence the company’s decision to enter Harare, a clear increase in demand carried more weight. “The demand is currently in Harare because that metropolitan area has a lot of business services and a lot of concentration of people due to urbanisation. Those people consume a lot of mobile, voice and data services and that places a big demand on transmission infrastructure. There are many businesses in Zimbabwe that require ISP services including the mobile operators. Mobile money has become a huge service, along with other e-payment services and that has increased the demand for more bandwidth.”

DFA Zimbabwe will be led by Simon Chimutsotso, an executive with experience in rolling out telecommunications infrastructure in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa. DFA says an accomplished executive team will support him in planning and deploying the initial sections of the high-speed Zimbabwean network, which will be made available on a wholesale open-access commercial offering.

Govender added that there are still growth opportunities in South Africa.

“We are just touching on the edge of digital transformation (in South Africa). We are still going to see the deployment of technologies such as edge computing for example which we are well-positioned for. We haven’t even touched on the potential of autonomous AI and mass scale adoption. Digital virtualises anything and we are positioned to grow on the back of that. We will continue to grow in the South African market, but we are looking for markets with low maturity to enter at the early stage so that we can tap into growth in other regions.”